by generalsjoes | Jul 12, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Toys, Pursuit of COBRA
I’ve said throughout my reviews time and time again that I’m really not a fan of G.I. Joe army builders. In my little corner of the universe, Cobra attacks with the legions of troopers while the G.I. Joe team should be a tightly woven, highly trained operations team without the “nameless” and the “faceless”. Nothing bugged me more in the Sunbow cartoons than those generic Green Shirts mixing it up right alongside the regular Joes.
But over the past 12 – 18 months Hasbro keeps on releasing awesome G.I. Joe army builders, forcing me to totally rethink my ideas of the G.I. Joe team. The Steel Brigade and Steel Brigade Delta were the straws that broke the camels back, and now with this figure in the Concept Case it would seem as if I have totally broken my “no troop builder” for the G.I. Joe team vow. The funny thing is, this figure isn’t necessarily stunning or ground breaking, it just speaks to me. It seems like an awesome concept, and suddenly this is something I really want to see first hand and really want to supplement my G.I. Joe team with. I can’t explain it any different than that.
7 – G.I. Joe: The Pursuit of Cobra Raven’s Wing
Yeah, it’s the Raven’s Wing. I cannot properly explain or express why I’m drawn to this figure. Don’t get me wrong, it looks very cool, borrowing elements from the very fun Pursuit of Cobra Duke, and also injecting some nice Pursuit of Cobra Beachhead arms which provides a really cool armored suit combination.
The idea of a team of “Stealth Operatives” is pretty neat, with the Raven’s Wing working in complete silence and obscurity, and most importantly I’m loving the ideas of new concepts to bring to the G.I. Joe table. Is this figure as visually stunning as some of the others in the case? No, not necessarily, but I love the concept, love the design, and I think G.I. Joe needs to bring new things to the table every once in a while. Yes, the filecard does give these guys a bit of the “I’m the best there is at what I do” feel, but I still feel like there’s a lot of potential here to work with.
Check out the images below.
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by generalsjoes | Jul 11, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Toys, Pursuit of COBRA
This great looking figure first hit our radar courtesy of Mat Brouillard who posted an image of the sculpt for Clutch on his Facebook page. Everyone kind of wondered whether it was a canceled concept, or merely something still to come.
I had an opportunity to speak with John Warden at the G.I. Joe Convention, and he confirmed to me that this version of Clutch was initially slated to come with the Pursuit of Cobra VAMP, while the updated HISS Driver was going to come packaged with the HISS in the same assortment. Unfortunately, due to cost reasons, the new figures were dropped, and kit-bashes were put in their place.
If you don’t know which figure I’m talking about by now… here’s the official run down:
8 – G.I. Joe: The Pursuit of Cobra Clutch
Clutch was always a tough character for me to get my head around. He had such a great personality in the comic books, and seemed to be one of those guys that you love to hate. He smooth talks you, and goes out for beers with you, then waits until your passed out drunk and hits on your girlfriend. He’s a guys guy, a grease monkey, and seems to be one of the more popular characters in the G.I. Joe mythos.
What is so great about this figure is they take a guy like Clutch and really turn him into something unique and interesting. He has the familiar bearded head sculpt, but the whole rest of the figure is something dramatically new. The armored vest with pouches are awesome, the bulky gauntlets look great, and he’s got all sorts of that terrific Pursuit of Cobra pseudo-futuristic design from head to toe. I would have loved to have seen him behind the wheel of the VAMP, but alas it was not to be.
Perhaps all is not lost, though. If enough fans clamor for him, perhaps his appearance in the Concept Case will get him a second life. If you want to see this guy at retail, don’t forget to vote!
For now, just take a peek at the images below.
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by generalsjoes | Jul 9, 2012 | 30th Anniversary, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Toys, Pursuit of COBRA
Twitter friend of GeneralsJoes Twitziller has provided an awesome service to folks who are pounding through the Concept Case survey I posted this morning! I’ve been hearing folks complain a bit about having to check an image, go back to the Survey, navigate through the gallery…
Well, Twitziller designed an entire Excel Spreadsheet with embedded mouse-over images, and sent it along for GeneralsJoes readers! This will hopefully make it even easier for folks to compare images and document the rankings before answering the survey questions.
A huge thanks to Twitziller and check out the Spreadsheet below. Use the Download link to grab it for yourself!
[gview file=”https://generalsjoesreborn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Poll-Reference-Sheet.xlsx”]
by generalsjoes | Jul 9, 2012 | 30th Anniversary, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Retaliation Toys, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, G.I. Joe: Renegades, Pursuit of COBRA
That’s right! With a huge thanks from GeneralsJoes reader Chris, who greatly assisted in setting this up, we have launched a SurveyMonkey survey based on what Hasbro showed in the Concept Case at the G.I. Joe Convention last weekend.
Please keep in mind, this is not a Hasbro sanctioned poll or an official data gathering system! This is all being done by GeneralsJoes, and is simply a way of gathering some empirical data to send off to Hasbro. According to Marketing Director Joe DelRegno, Hasbro will likely be launching their own online polling system as well, but rather than wait for that to be coded (I believe they only made the decision to do it last weekend, based on the overwhelming response from G.I. Joe fans) we figured we’d get a leg up and start this sucker early.
As we’ve seen many times in the past, toy collecting is very much a “what have you done for me lately” scenario, and with a desire to strike while the iron is hot, GeneralsJoes is doing their own survey while emotions are raw and at the surface. You can either click the banner above to check out the survey page, or click right here.
Linked on the survey page is also a very easy to follow gallery of all of the unproduced items shown with clear identification. Chris and myself worked hard to make this as simple and straight forward as possible. Please check it out, and please take a few minutes to answer. I know this isn’t official, but the data from this survey will be gathered and sent to Hasbro, so there WILL be a voice. Let it be yours!
by generalsjoes | Jul 4, 2012 | 30th Anniversary, Dollar Store, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Convention, G.I. Joe Retaliation Toys, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, G.I. Joe: The Movie, JoeCon 2012, Pursuit of COBRA, Show and Convention Coverage
And no, I’m not talking about bringing home toys. I’m talking about intangible things. Opinions, feelings, impressions, etc…
I felt quite lucky throughout the weekend to be able to spend quite a bit of time with various folks at the Convention. Whether it was speaking with Lanny or Brian from the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club at the Golden Ticket dinner, or speaking to Hasbro at the Charity Casino Night dinner and on the sales floor. I was left with a series of impressions, both good and bad, and I’m not certain folks who weren’t there could grasp that through the convention coverage.
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by generalsjoes | Jun 29, 2012 | 30th Anniversary, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary, G.I. Joe Collectors Club, G.I. Joe Convention, G.I. Joe Toys, JoeCon 2012, Pursuit of COBRA, Show and Convention Coverage
I think most fans seem to be having the same sentiment in regards to the concept shelf, and the same feeling of mixed emotions. While I personally love to see pre-production items, unproduced items, and things in various stages of design and production, having a full blown glass case of figures that are currently not due for release is a real blow to the gut.
That’s not to say I don’t want to see them and I want Hasbro to not show this stuff…I absolutely love it and eat this up, but it does fill me with some serious mixed emotions. Obviously the G.I. Joe: Renegades shelf hit me hard with very nice, crisp pre-production Coyote and Flint’s Jeep concepts. Scrap Iron was a beauty as well. But for many folks, it was likely the 30th Anniversary shelf that was particularly devastating.
An awesome Flint update with his classic look, accompanied by Lady Jaye. Beachhead, HEAT-Viper, Snow Serpent, Laser-Viper, Tele-Viper…and Hit & Run. Oh good God that Hit & Run. This figure is something I’ve been dreaming about with the character for years. It reeked of Hit & Run perfection…but apparently it is not to be. Twist that knife a little deeper, Hasbro.
In all seriousness, I cannot stop commending the Hasbro designers for what they’re able to do. This case was loaded with a ton of great looking figures that were by and large cobbled together from existing parts, and the fact that they could get updated designs to come out as strong and flawless as they did without doing too much new tooling is quite simply astounding. Applause, Hasbro designers… now, how do we convince the bean counters to let this stuff get to retail?
Check out some images below, as organized as I can make them. I will refine this all into a SuperPage at some point very soon, but for now, let’s just get the images up there.
G.I. Joe: Renegades
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G.I. Joe: 30th Anniversary and the Pursuit of Cobra
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G.I. Joe: Legend of the Arashikage Ninja
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G.I. Joe: Zombie Attack
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G.I. Joe Vehicle Concepts
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Items of note… the guy with the hockey mask is a “Dreadnok Trooper”. The Howler and the Diver were both shown in Providence. The diver figure has the familiar “Sigma 6” ports on his uniform, so that wounds me like a gunshot. The bearded guy behind the Dreadnok Trooper is an unreleased PoC Clutch.
In talking with John Warden and Derryl, they were certain to point out that these are all definitely concepts and not to expect release on anything shown here, however, they were very interested to hear in our favorites. They strongly encouraged communication with Hasbro to express our interest in some of these offerings.
I plan on rolling out some polls and top ten lists perhaps next week once Con hysteria slows down to try and form up some sort of consistent message that can hopefully be relayed about how much we want to see some of these items released. I would imagine stuff like the G.I. Joe: Renegades items are pretty much off the table, just because of the nature of the brand at this point, but I would imagine there might be other possibilities if we can express our opinions intelligently and constructively.
As I said, I will get this better organized in a SuperPage format going forward, but I wanted to at least get the images out there, I know they are spreading like wildfire already as it is. Interesting note in my opinion was that all of the G.I. Joe: Retaliation product shown had shelf tags leading up to 4/12/2013, but nothing beyond. That shows to me there is still a lot planned for next year, so it will be interesting to see what ends up being revealed tomorrow at the Hasbro seminar.
Fingers crossed!
More coverage to come, I promise. Sorry for the delay on this stuff. Crazy day as you can imagine.
